Stockholm Wrap-Up

These two days in Stockholm have been really productive. As if often happens, things have coalesced really at the last minute, yesterday evening I still didn't know if I would be meeting with anyone today. Turns out I met with a whole lot of interesting people.

Yesterday I had interesting discussions around regulation, which shed in a much clearer light on something I have suspected for a while but never really nailed, and that is the crucial role that real-estate people played in shaping the Swedish Fiber Model. Telcos and interested parties elsewhere should pay attention!

Today, I talked in front of a panel of esteemed innovators and service providers (and Ericsson people) about the threat of telco disintermediation and its implications. Really interesting discussions, a demo of a really cool disintermediating TV service, and lots of follow-up to do o nthe research side.

Still, for all that good stuff, I still have this nagging feeling that the Swedish ecosystem is living on its gains and that, if the innovation drive hasn't died off, it's certainly cooled a lot. Most of the people you meet are incubators, scholars, associations, r&d people, but few (at least on the wireline broadband side) are actual business people.

I said this before, I'll say it again: the potential benefits of the broadband advance for the Swedish tech sector is huge, but they've got to start delivering.

Still, I did get to see a really cool healthcare related product and was pointed to a number of service provider currently aggregating cloud services, and that's something I will definitely be pursuing.